


I Break Pattern, I Break Ground

by knight_tracer, lady_ragnell



Series: Rebuild When I Break Down [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Audio Format: M4B, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Multi, Podfic, Podfic Length: 1-1.5 Hours, Rebuilding, Speculation, Stormtrooper Rebellion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-06-17 17:16:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15466233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knight_tracer/pseuds/knight_tracer, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/pseuds/lady_ragnell
Summary: The Resistance has temporarily moved to Cloud City, and Rose finds herself in charge of getting their new fleet off the ground.





	I Break Pattern, I Break Ground

**Author's Note:**

> Cover art by reena_jenkins.

**Podfic Length:** 1:16:19

 **Streaming:** [mp3](http://knight-tracer.parakaproductions.com/Podfic/04%20I%20Break%20Pattern,%20I%20Break%20Ground.mp3)

 **Download Links:** [mp3](http://knight-tracer.parakaproductions.com/Podfic/04%20I%20Break%20Pattern,%20I%20Break%20Ground.mp3) | [m4b](http://knight-tracer.parakaproductions.com/Podfic/04%20I%20Break%20Pattern,%20I%20Break%20Ground.m4b)

**Series Podbook:** [here](http://knight-tracer.parakaproductions.com/Podfic/Rebuild%20When%20I%20Break%20Down.m4b)

Rose wakes up, and Finn is watching her. He's not crying, but his face is screwed up like maybe he wants to, and when she tries to mumble something, he lights up and she knows he's talking, but she drifts away again.

Rose wakes up, and the General is standing over her bed, looking so tired, looking so old, that Rose can't bear it, and goes back to sleep.

Rose wakes up, and Poe Dameron is asleep with his head at an awkward angle against her mattress, snoring a little. She's awake a little longer that time, long enough to hear the harmonics of a strange ship, a model she doesn't recognize by sound, and the sounds of rustles and snores and too many beings in a small space, as well as a few chirps she can't place, but she can't talk to ask where she is, or what happened.

Rose wakes up, and there's a woman she doesn't recognize sitting in front of her, but she still knows who she is. “I thought I felt you waking,” says Rey, Rey the Jedi, Rey Finn's friend. She's tense and unhappy and blocking out the rest of the room, though Rose thinks she can hear people talking.

“Finn?” she asks. It's probably not the most important question.

“He's with the General right now. Do you need anything? The medics will have to see to you, but if you need water, or anything else ...”

“What happened?” That one is the most important question, followed by the one she makes herself ask next. “Did we lose?”

“No.” Rey swallows and looks away, a lightning-quick shift. “Yes.”

Oh, no. “How many of us are there?”

“Not … not enough. Just this ship, and it's not a big ship. The General is begging for help, but no one has sent it yet.”

This can't be over. Too many people have sacrificed too much for the Resistance to lose. Paige didn't die for nothing. Rose has to believe that. “They will. They've got to, right? We've got a Jedi! Two! Or did he not come with you?”

Rey's face twists, and Rose is doing this all wrong but she doesn't know how to do it right. She's saved from Rey's answer by a commotion, though: BB-8 appears behind Rey, makes a series of loud noises, and then there's some kind of bird, and then there are medics and Finn with a bright smile on his face like maybe things are okay after all and Rose forgets to keep track of things in all the confusion.

*

The Resistance is less than fifty people now. Rose is too tired to get out of her bunk, so she can't count them all, but a lot of them visit her over the next day. Finn sits with her and tells her the whole horrible story, while thanking her and scolding her with a helpless look on his face that makes her squeeze his hand and want to apologize for doing the right thing. The General thanks her for what she did and tells her that when she's on her feet they'll be grateful for her help, because the ship needs maintenance. Poe shows up at her bedside and tells her stupid stories like he thinks she can't tell that he's gutted. The Resistance is everything to him, and he made a gamble and failed and more people might have died because of it.

Rey avoids her. Rose can't really blame her, after the conversation they had when she woke up, but she doesn't like it. This ship is the Resistance, and they've all got to be pulling together.

It's a relief when, a day after Rose wakes up, the General calls them all into the ship's packed room, where they barely all fit and the squawks of what she's learned are called porgs almost drown the General out before Chewbacca roars them to silence.

“I've had contact with an old friend,” the General says. “We're going to him to regroup, and he says he has some troops for us. Maybe a ship, but that's a touchy subject with him.” There's almost a smile on her face. “We'll be there in less than a day, and we'll figure out what we can do from there.” She looks around at all of them, suddenly stern. “We're not done yet. We haven't lost. We're going to take a little time, work out a strategy, and stop the First Order.”

Poe is the first one to start cheering, which gets him a few wry looks considering he was the one who mutinied, but everyone else, relieved at the optimism, starts in not far behind him. Rose is still too breathless to do much, but she tries to smile.

Rey doesn't. She's against one wall, eyes pressed closed like she's shutting the room out, and before the cheering is done, she's ducked out of the room.

Finn comes over to Rose to tell her how excited he is, grin stretching his face wide, and Rose smiles back because she can't help it when Finn does, but Rey's unhappy face sticks in her mind. She doesn't mention it to anyone, but she doesn't forget it ever.

*

They break out of hyperspace not far from Bespin and Cloud City. It's closer to the Core than Rose would have thought they would risk, but then again, they're one ship, and a small one. They can fly under the radar, this way.

The whole Resistance troops off the ship when they've been cleared to land, and Rose is one of the last off the ship, with Finn on one side of her and BB-8 on the other, the two of them keeping her balanced and upright when she's still more than a little shaky on her feet.

The first thing she notices is that she's been riding on the _Millennium Falcon_ , and she smacks Finn weakly on the arm when she sees it on the outside. “You didn't think to mention that I was on the most famous ship in the history of the Resistance? I would have asked to look at the mechanics!”

“It could use a tune-up,” Finn says. “And I guess I didn't think to.”

“Nobody thought to! I have to give it a look, though.”

“Maybe they'll let you help with the repairs once you've been in some bacta,” he offers.

The crowd in front of them clears a little, then, and Rose has a good view of what's happening at the front of it. The General is standing with a man she thinks she recognizes from old Rebellion holos as Lando Calrissian, an officer from the battle for Endor and an old friend of Han Solo's. He's a good-looking man in a sweeping cloak, and he's been swept into a hug by Chewbacca. When he's released, he turns to the General, takes her hands in his, says something too quiet for Rose to hear.

The General shakes her head, says something else quiet, and gestures a few people forward: Poe, Connix, Rey, the few other commanders of the Resistance. She introduces them, and Finn gets Rose through the crowd enough to hear the end of that, anyway.

When it's done, General Calrissian raises his voice. “Welcome, all of you. We've got rooms, baths, some changes of clothes even if they aren't uniforms. And we've got some people to introduce you to, too. Come on in.”

They follow the sweep of his cloak, and Poe doubles back to her and Finn, taking over for BB-8 on her other side. “We'll get you a chair once you're inside, sorry you're having to do this,” he says, giving Rose's shoulder a little squeeze. “And he's got bacta, the General made sure of that.”

Rose is tired of sleeping, but she's also tired of hurting. A little time in a bacta tank and they'll let her free and she'll be able to help again, not just recover. The Resistance needs mechanics to fix up the ships they need for the pilots. “That's good, a lot of us could probably use it,” she says.

Both of them frown, and it was probably the wrong thing to say, but Rose doesn't know what the right one is. When Poe changes the subject to stories he's heard about Bespin and Cloud City and what General Calrissian got up to in his days with the Rebellion, she's relieved, and lets the subject carry them inside.

*

Rose loses track of everyone for a while. She's the worst hurt of the survivors, so the medics of the Cloud City administrative building put her in bacta before she can ask any questions, and she wakes up a few hours later feeling a lot steadier on her feet, but just as confused and tired.

“Where are my friends?” she asks the nearest medic, because she doesn't know who she should be reporting to and she wants to know what's happening.

The medic purses her lips. “I'll ask if they can send someone. They're meeting their new recruits right now, but someone is bound to be free.”

“I don't want to be any trouble.”

“From what I hear, you saved a very important life. I don't think they'll mind going to a little trouble for you.”

Rose wants to say that she didn't do much but almost die, and then she wants to say that every life in the Resistance and outside it is precious, but the medic has already left, and Rose knows what she means anyway. She wonders if Finn or Rey feel this uncomfortable when people act like they're heroes.

The bacta has left her tired, but in less pain than she's been since Crait. Probably, if there are supplies, she'll need another session or two of immersion, but for now she's well enough to see her friends. At least she'd better be, and she doubts the medic would have gone to get someone if she weren't.

When the medic returns, Poe is with her. Rose had half-expected Finn, and doesn't quite know what to say to Poe, who seems a little dazed and greets her with a wider grin than he should be able to manage after everything that's happened. “You've missed a pretty busy hour, Rose,” he says, offering a hand to pull her out of bed. When the medic doesn't glare, Rose lets him. Her feet even hold her, after a few unsteady seconds. “I don't think you'll believe it without seeing it, and either way Finn is kind of stuck down there, so we're going to go let you see.”

“I'd believe anything, right now,” Rose admits. “Especially if it's good. We could use good news.”

“This is the best news,” Poe assures her, already leading her out of the medical suite. Because he's Poe Dameron, he already knows half the people they pass in corridors on the way to wherever he's taking her, or at least does a good impression of knowing them. Rose smiles at everyone too, because Bespin is taking a chance letting the Resistance in. The First Order doesn't have a foothold like the Empire used to, but they want to, and they've shattered every force they came in contact with, even if they were shattered in return.

Eventually, Poe gets her to what seems to be a large meeting room, and when the door is opened, the first impression she has is of blinding, polished white. She flinches back automatically, but Poe's arm is strong around her waist, and it only takes her a second to realize that none of the troopers are wearing helmets. Finn is in the middle of them all, tears on his cheeks, and they're all watching him like he's amazing. Rey is too, from where she's off at the edge of the room, and the General is standing with General Calrissian and Maz Kanata, looking bemused while the other two look smug.

“Hey, everyone,” Poe says, shepherding her a little farther into the room. “This is Rose Tico, sorry she's a little late but she was getting patched up after saving Finn's life the other day.”

Finn beams at her, and Rose is faced with the intimidating stares of forty stormtroopers. They're all young, none of them older than her, and she thinks the youngest can't be much more than fifteen. “Rose, this is Squad A4-Delta! They don't all have names yet, but Maz Kanata broke them out of a transport ship and told them about, uh, the Resistance, and they decided to join us!”

“She told them about Finn,” Poe says, just loud enough for her to hear it.

“Officer Tico,” says the nearest trooper, with an extended hand. He's a lot taller than she is, a human with neatly cut hair and a smile that sits strangely on his face. “It's an honor.”

Rose shakes his hand automatically, but she wants to say that she's not an officer, that she's just a mechanic, but she remembers just who was on the _Falcon_ , and realizes with a lurch that she's the ranking member of the Resistance mechanics right now, if not the whole ground crew. “Rose is fine,” she says instead. “I'm glad you guys decided to join us.”

“We have some ships, and a few small fighters,” he says, smile widening.

“That's … I'm _really_ glad you guys decided to join us.”

Now everyone is smiling at her, and Rose really isn't used to this being a hero thing. But Poe is, and Finn is, or at least they should be, so when Poe escorts her over to Finn and Finn starts introducing her to everyone with names, and the designations of those without them, she puts on her best smile and hopes that she's living up to whatever expectations they've got.

*

The next day, after another dunk in the bacta tank and a long night's sleep have her feeling more like herself, Rose argues with Connix until she's told where the _Falcon_ is. She owes that ship, and it needs fixing up, so she's going to do it until General Organa tells her to start looking at the new ships the former troopers brought. Those, security staff is still looking through, searching for tracking devices and software, stripping them of anything that might let the First Order find them.

The _Falcon_ is in the nicest hangar in Cloud City, and General Calrissian is prying open some of the plating when she gets there. She freezes, about to back off, but he's already seen her and smiled one of the charming smiles she remembers from his holos. “Tico, right? The mechanic? You ever worked on a Corellian freighter before?”

Rose considers that. “No, but this is less a Corellian freighter and more six different ships cobbled together. That, I can work with.”

“I'd object, but I can blame any problems on Han. Or on whatever monster had her on Jakku. Come on up, Tico, some of the wiring is shot and I've got old eyes.”

She climbs up, ignoring the twinges from hurts not quite healed. His eyes aren't old, not with how sharp they are when they take in how she's trying not to flinch, but they are tired. He was friends with Han Solo, with Luke Skywalker. His heart must be broken just like the General's, just like Chewbacca's. “Rose is fine,” she says once she's up there and only a little winded. “Show me what the trouble is.”

“Rose,” he says, suddenly all warm and charming smile again, so she almost thinks she imagined the tiredness. He even kisses her hand. “Whatever the trouble is, I'm sure we'll fix it.”

The _Falcon_ is a mess, and Rose wants to cry with relief about it. She can handle a ship that doesn't work right more easily than she can handle the loss of Paige, the loss of the Resistance, the loss of too many friendly faces to count. She and General Calrissian, who has her calling him Lando within an afternoon, spend days inside the ship and outside it, fixing everything that's wrong, even though he never lets her anywhere near the ship's nav system or its core intelligence.

“The _Falcon_ was a friend,” he explains the first time, and Rose knows about losing friends, so she doesn't ask.

Chewbacca helps them too, and sometimes R2-D2 will come by to plug into the ship's systems and help with diagnostics, but it's not until the third day they're working on it that anyone else stops in.

“Oh,” says Rey when Rose appears from under the co-pilot's seat, where some of the wiring was coming loose. “It's you.”

Rose really wants to like Rey. She's their best hope, and she's a hero, and she's so _sad_ , but Rey always looks at Rose like she wants to cry, and Rose has a horrible feeling that it has to do with Finn, and wants to just say that they can both love him, that it doesn't matter and he would be horrified if they weren't friends because of him. She doesn't know Rey well enough to manage to say it, though. “It's me,” she agrees instead. “Were you here to help?”

“I didn't know anyone was fixing it.”

She sounds more lost than unfriendly, so Rose takes a chance. “Yeah, Lando and I have been doing it, but he has governing to do, and Chewbacca and I can't do everything. Want to help out?”

Rey will probably say no. She's got better things to do than fix up an old ship, even if it was Han Solo's ship, even if it's the ship she escaped Jakku in. Rose has picked up enough gossip to know that she's the last Jedi they have, even if she tightens up every time anyone says that word, but that she doesn't have a light saber, doesn't have a teacher, doesn't have anything but some books. She has plenty to do without sitting on the _Falcon_ tightening wires. “Yes,” she says, derailing Rose's pessimism. “I know how all this works too. I got her flying again when she'd been downed for years.”

Maybe Rey is trying to tell her that she's not needed, but she still mostly looks sad and tired. Rose can't muster up too many hurt feelings in the face of that. “Okay, then come join me. I'm used to Resistance ships, and I'm having fun with this one.”

Rose wants to wince as soon as she's said it, because fun doesn't seem like it should be on the table when everything is so hard, when they've all lost so much. Rey, though, relaxes a little when she says it. “Believe it or not, it was worse when I found it. The compressor ...” She shakes her head. “It was awful.”

“It still is, but she saved the Rebellion, and now the Resistance, and I'm going to make sure she's running like she's right off the factory line. Better.”

After a few seconds, Rey nods. “Like I said, I'll help. Han taught me a little, before he … well, he taught me a little.”

Rose nods right back, no idea what to say to that, and hands Rey a wrench. “Come on, there's a wiring problem under here I could use a second pair of eyes on.”

An hour later, Chewbacca and Lando show up in the cockpit wondering where she is, and when they see Rey, they just smile and leave them alone. It's quiet for the rest of the afternoon, but Rey looks a little better, and so does the _Falcon_ 's wiring, so Rose doesn't mind a little quiet.

*

“I feel like I've barely seen you since you woke up,” Finn says the next morning, catching her at breakfast with a little line between his eyebrows like he's afraid she's avoiding him.

“You've been kind of busy with the ex-troopers,” she points out. “How are they settling in?”

Finn frowns a little more, and Rose is reminded that when all is said and done, he's only been away from the First Order a little longer than they have. “Okay,” he says after a wait. “They think there are others who might defect, if they hear about it, and if they're told about what things are like here.”

“That's good. That's … amazing, actually.” The Resistance needs to be bigger, and if it's bigger at the cost of the First Order, all the better. “I've just been fixing up the _Falcon_ , since they won't let me at the troopers' ships yet.”

“Probably in a day or so, Poe thinks?” The room where the resistance is mostly eating its meals right now is mostly empty. All the ex-troopers but Finn eat together, and they have breakfast early before they go to the General and the rest of what remains of Resistance Intelligence to debrief and tell them what they know. “Rey's been helping, right?”

“For the past day, yeah. It's been going a lot faster with her!”

Finn's frown immediately deepens. “Only a day? She's said she's been there for days.”

Either she's been going and getting scared off by Rose and Lando and Chewbacca, or she's been telling Finn she's going there and going somewhere else instead. Either way, it's not good. “Is she okay?” she asks, even though it isn't really her business.

“I don't know. She won't really talk about it.”

All of them had a horrible few days. Rose doesn't talk about it either, so she can't blame Rey, but Finn's drooping just thinking about it. “She probably just needed some time to think. We all need that, right? And she's working on the _Falcon_ now.”

Finn takes a deep breath. “Right, she is. And you should tell me about what you've been doing on it, and what General Calrissian is like, because he hasn't been around too much.”

And neither has she. Partly that's because everyone is busy and she has to be too, because if she stops moving she starts thinking. Partly that's because she is almost completely certain that she kissed Finn when she thought she was dying and now neither of them knows if they should say anything about it. But maybe he's decided and the answer is that they shouldn't, because he isn't asking about that. He's asking about the _Falcon_ , and she has no problems talking about that.

Rose talks until one of the ex-troopers, a girl a year or two younger than Rose is who seems to be getting called Emmy by her friends, comes to ask Finn to come to the Intelligence debrief because they need some information.

He gives her a big hug before he goes and tells her to say hello to Rey for him, and that, Rose decides, is plenty.

*

“Finn says hello,” she tells Rey that afternoon while they're deep in the bowels of the ship where Lando and Chewbacca both claimed to be too old to go.

Rey almost drops her laser saw, which tells Rose more than she needs to know. “How is Finn?” she asks, sounding choked.

Rose could say something soothing, or even something true, but she ends up angry instead, and she puts her wrench down with a bang and glares at Rey. “You don't have to be asking me, you could be asking him. He's worried about you, and he misses you.”

“A lot happened, and I don't know how to talk about it with him.”

“So talk about something else! The Resistance is too small for you not to be talking to each other.” Rose shakes her head when Rey tries to answer her. “He almost deserted because he was so worried about you. Everything we did, we did because he wanted to save you. He deserves better from you.”

Rey's face screws up, eyes glistening, and Rose is afraid she's gone too far, but she stands by it, too. “And I didn't want to get in between the two of you,” Rey says, and Rose freezes. “I saw how he looked at you when you were hurt, and it's … I don't want to get in the middle of that.”

Rose's cheeks go hot. “We're not … he isn't—look. Either way, you're his friend and you miss each other. And if you want more than friendship, you have to ask him. We aren't together.”

“Oh, that's—I was so sure.” Rey's looking a little happier and a little sorry, and Rose feels about the same, for very different reasons. “I'm sorry. I don't mean to put this on you.”

“How many people do you have to confide in right now?” Rose asks, both rhetorically and gracelessly, and winces. “Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I mean that you probably have more exciting people to be friends with, because you're the Jedi, but even if it's a little awkward, you're welcome to talk to me. It seems like maybe you could use someone to talk to, even if it's not about whatever happened.”

“That's … thank you.” Rey picks her saw up again. “I'll talk to Finn. I promise. And I'm not some Jedi who can't talk to other people. I'm just a scavenger from Jakku, and if you want to be my friend, I'm honored.”

Rose tries a tentative smile, and Rey returns one. “You could tell me about Jakku, if you don't want to talk about anything more recent,” she offers.

To her surprise, Rey does. There are things she has to be leaving out, considering how impersonal the explanation is, but it's a start, and by the time Chewbacca appears to tell them not to miss dinner, Rose feels like maybe they're actually going to be friends.

*

“I've got a treat for you,” Poe tells her, catching up to her as she leaves lunch. She's been at loose ends all morning, since Command has been having a meeting all morning that includes Lando, Chewbacca, and Rey, and it turns out fixing up the _Falcon_ is a little lonely on her own.

“Aren't you supposed to be in that meeting?” Poe may have been demoted, and should be on trial for mutiny, but the Resistance doesn't have the resources to court martial anyone right now. They need him, and he's the most senior pilot they've got, so he's suddenly in charge of their flying force, not just a wing of it.

Poe shrugs. “Apparently I'm still a dangerous and unstable influence and also annoying.”

He's smiling, but Rose knows how much he respects the General and hates being in her bad books, so he probably needs whatever this treat is as much as she does. “If she believed that,” she points out, “she wouldn't let you spend so much time with the ex-troopers.”

“I know.” His smile gets a little softer. “You're pretty amazing, Rose Tico, did you know that? Your sister thought so too.”

Rose can't let herself think about Paige much still, even though she deserves a lot better than that. “I'm going to try to be,” she says, instead of agreeing or disagreeing.

“Well, you're doing great. And if you want an opportunity to do more ...” She takes the hint and lets him lead her through some halls and into a different ship hangar. At first, she catches her breath, stupidly terrified with First Order ships confronting her. When Poe just grins and makes a grand gesture, though, she realizes what's going on. “The ships have been cleared!” he says unnecessarily. “Want to take apart some First Order tech and see how it works?”

Fixing up the _Falcon_ is amazing, but it's only one ship, and it's falling apart and finicky. Having new ships, ones that only need maintenance and for her to understand their workings, ones that are going to be the basis of the next Resistance fleet, is a relief. Rose grins right back at him. “You definitely know how to give me a treat.”

Working with Rey was one kind of interesting. Rey is an inventive, unorthodox mechanic who seems to know exactly what the _Falcon_ needs for an extra little bit of speed, a slightly faster response on the controls. Poe only knows basic pilot maintenance, but he knows exactly what these ships need to do, and he talks her through it: modifications for the astromechs that the Resistance relies on, changes to the targeting computers, increased safety ratings. This time, she's in charge of how to make the changes, and she finds that she likes it, and even if she keeps flinching at the sight of the sleek First Order colors and shapes, she gets good work done before Finn's arrival with a few ex-troopers on his heels calls a halt.

“Are any of you mechanics?” she asks when she climbs down from the cockpit of one of the fighters. All of them need some serious safety considerations. The First Order doesn't mind wasting people in the name of extra firepower, but the Resistance has never worked like that. “This is going to be a lot to fix on my own.”

“Some of us know some,” one of the men offers. She doesn't know his name yet, but he seems to be in charge of one of the smaller squads, so she should probably learn it. “Do you need help, officer?”

“Yeah.” She elbows Poe. “Pilots can never take care of their own ships.”

Poe just laughs. “If we could, you'd be out of a job.” He turns to the ex-troopers, catching Finn's grin as he does. “Over the next few days, we'll be asking about specialties, and some of you will be assigned to assist Officer Tico. She and I have made a list of improvements and changes, and we want to make sure that we're ready as soon as we can be.”

Finn speaks up. “We were just talking to the General once she got out of her meeting, and she said the same thing. We're thinking tomorrow?”

Poe nods. “That's what she told me.”

Rose gives him a sidelong look and wonders if he was sent out of the meeting not because the General is still angry at him but because he was put in charge of ship maintenance and wasn't needed for the rest of the meeting. Of course, it being Poe and the General, it might be both. “I'll look forward to working with you,” she tells the ex-troopers.

“For now I think everyone deserves some time off, though,” says Poe. It's only been a few days, but Rose knows they're already having to mandate breaks, to show the ex-troopers that they value more than their work. “So I'm going to steal Rose and Finn, and you guys find whatever it is that you want to do right now.”

There's some nervous shuffling, especially when Finn gives them all a wave and a few cheerful words and goes wherever Poe is leading him, but they'll figure it out. Finn already is, and all things said and done, he hasn't been free much longer than they have.

Poe takes them, talking about ships and how much he misses X-wings already the whole way, to a place that turns out to be an observation deck of sorts, where they can look out and see clouds, and spires disappearing into them. He makes conversation about everything but how desperate the Resistance is, all about Bespin and what happened with Lando and Luke Skywalker and the General and everyone else back in those days, stories his parents told him while he was growing up.

Finn laughs at one dramatic reenactment, and Poe's face softens, and Rose's heart hurts a little for him. Here Finn is, with Poe and Rey and Rose herself all wishing for something, and she's not sure he knows at all. Her heart hurts a little for herself too, because if he realizes, Rose isn't Poe Dameron, the most recognizable face in the Resistance, much less Rey, a heroine and a Jedi.

When they head back in the direction of the mess, Poe falls back with her. “You okay? I know it's intimidating to suddenly be a senior officer, but you were on your way in that direction anyway. I think you can do it.”

Rose smiles, because that's not what's bothering her, even if it should be. “It'll be fine. Especially with the ex-troopers, since they already know the ships. How about you? Are you okay?”

“I'm going to be fine,” he says, and she doesn't know if he means it about Finn or about their mutiny and its lasting consequences, but she can at least try to believe him.

*

The General catches her at breakfast, and that's uncomfortable and maybe always going to be, even if her smile is warm. Rose was never supposed to be high up enough in the chain of command for people like Leia Organa to take notice of her. The war was supposed to be over by then. “I know I've put you in charge of a lot, Rose, but I know you can do it,” she says.

Rose squares her shoulders. “I can. Poe and I made a list of everything that needs to be done, and the ex-troopers already know how the ships work, so they know what can be modified without blowing them up.”

“Good. I'm glad.” The General meets her eyes for a long, terrifying moment, and Rose remembers all the stories of everything Jedi could do. The General isn't a Jedi, but she could have been if she wanted to be. “Put a new coat of paint on them, will you? We need to be able to identify our own in battle.”

And maybe she doesn't want to look at the First Order's colors any more than Rose does. “Of course, General. Cosmetics come last, but it's on the list, if we can afford the paint.”

Her smile is wry. “Luckily for us, Lando Calrissian is one of the richest men in the galaxy.”

*

Working with the ex-troopers is a lot easier than Rose was fearing. At heart, they're still soldiers, if soldiers who don't know as much about the world as she's used to. They still tell dirty jokes while they work on safety features and gossip about command, though their gossip is anxious and falls apart whenever they realize she's listening, like they worry she'll report back.

She has eight on her crew of mechanics, and comes to know them all pretty well within a day of working, and to consider them friends within three. Poe wanders in and out, full of pilot's advice and smiles, and sometimes Finn comes to exchange a few quiet words with one of the ex-troopers. Both of them make a point of stopping to talk to Rose privately for a few moments every time, even if all they're saying hello.

On her fourth day of busily trying to put together the new fleet, Rey shows up.

“I don't know much about First Order ships,” she says, chin raised, “but I'm willing to work.”

“Working on the _Falcon_ is the best recommendation there is,” says Rose, and assigns her to wiring one of the ships for astromech compatibility along with one of the ex-troopers.

She keeps an eye on Rey for the rest of the day, with all the attention she can spare. Rey is quiet, but she gets her work done, and while she and the ex-trooper she's working with don't exactly talk a lot, Rey doesn't seem to scare him, so that's a good beginning, anyway. The ex-troopers are wary about Force-users, and she can't blame them.

Connix is the one who collects them at the end of their shift, and she frowns at Rose and Rey and tells them both that they need rest too. “Especially you,” she reminds Rose. “You were hurt not that long ago.”

“I hardly got to do anything all day,” Rose protests. “I just have to say that something needs doing, and they were starting before I could reach my tools.”

“Commanding is hard work, Officer Tico. Just wait till they give you a real rank and start cross-training you.” Rose tries not to look panicked, but Connix grins at her in a way that makes her think she probably fails. “I've got to get the ex-troopers to some holo Calrissian is insisting on showing them about the Empire era where I suspect he's the hero. You could join, if you want—or just go to dinner. I think I heard Poe convincing Finn they should have a quiet meal.”

Rose doesn't know Connix well enough to ask if that was a hint to one or both of them or if it was information honestly given. She doesn't know what Finn and the three people who care for him so much look like from the outside, because she hardly knows what they look like from the inside. “Thanks, we might do that. I saw all the holos about the Death Star and the Battle of Endor when I was a kid, anyway.”

“I haven't, but I think I'd rather have some quiet. Thanks, Connix,” says Rey, and to Rose's surprise she actually starts putting her tools away.

Connix just smiles. “Okay, I'll see you two tomorrow, then,” she says, and jogs off after the ex-troopers, who Poe keeps insisting needing a wing name even though not all of them are pilots.

“Is the _Falcon_ taken care of for now?” Rose asks when they're left in the hangar in awkward silence, stretching the day's kinks out of her back and starting to gather up her mess. “I'm sorry I left it mid-project, but we need formation ships.”

“I don't think the _Falcon_ is ever done,” says Rey, a little wry. “These ships need less work to be ready, and we need them.” She pauses for a few moments and gives Rose a sidelong glance. “And Lando and Chewbacca were busy, anyway. I liked the company.”

That's nice to know, even if Rey didn't really act like she liked the company. But then again, Rey has a lot to think about right now. “If you want company, we should go see if we can catch Finn and Poe at dinner. I think Finn's been missing you.”

Rey frowns, and Rose winces, but after a second or two Rey nods. “Sure, we'll see if they're at dinner. I could eat.”

Rose sighs her relief, and finishes packing her tools away before following Rey down the halls to the mess, where sure enough there are only a few people having quiet meals, Poe and Finn among them. Finn is laughing at something Poe just said while Poe smiles at him so bright it makes Rose smile too even as she falters a little. If they don't want to be interrupted, she doesn't want to interrupt them.

Beside her, Rey is slowing down too. There's a smile on her face, but it's tentative.

Poe spots them before Rose can think of anything to say, and of course he's too nice to look disappointed or annoyed that they're interrupting. He just calls their names and waves them over, getting them intercepted by BB-8 halfway there, who has a lot to say about one of the First Order ships that was apparently very rude to him when he was plugged into it during security checks.

By the time that's done, they're all sitting at the same table, and Rose can shake off at least most of the awkwardness of interrupting Poe and Finn, if they were doing something that might be interrupted. “How's the fleet coming, Rose?” Poe asks as soon as she's sitting, leaving Rey and Finn to exchange a few quiet words.

“Pretty fast. We should be set for some preliminary drills in a few weeks, I think. Rey came to help us out.”

Poe smiles at Rey just like he smiled at Finn, and Rey smiles back, not quite as comfortable as she is with Finn but close. Rose's stomach lurches a little. “Hey, that's great.”

“I'm good at ships. And I don't have a crystal or anything else I need to make a saber, so ...” Rey shrugs, but she's gone tense again when she was actually kind of relaxes after fixing up the ships, and Rose's stomach lurches again, for completely different reasons. “It's where I'm useful.”

Rose blurts the first thing that comes to her mind, because Finn and Poe have noticed that Rey is upset too, and they're both tensing up too, and Finn is looking at Rose like maybe she can fix it. “Best mechanic I've got, for sure. They should be promoting you, not me.”

“Rey's a swing, though. Pilot, mechanic, you name it,” says Finn, and turns to Rose with a grin. “Did I tell you how she got us off Jakku? She was amazing.”

“No, I only heard it third-hand.”

Finn launches into the story, a confusing and overlapping tale of walking through the desert, being accused of being a thief by BB-8, and being attacked by the First Order and escaping on the _Falcon_. BB-8 and Rey both chime in, one aggrieved about Finn taking Poe's jacket and the other laughing, and when they're finished, Poe backs the story up to tell Rose about how Finn got him away from the First Order, though the whole Resistance heard that story when Poe turned back up after Jakku.

When that story winds down, they're all finished eating, and Rose expects one of them to come up with an excuse, real or imagined, to go somewhere else. Instead, the other three turn their eyes to her. “How about you, Rose?” Poe asks. “I think it's your turn for a story.”

Rose shakes her head. “Oh no, not me. I'm just a mechanic.”

Finn scoffs. “Just a mechanic? I'm telling them about Canto Bight.”

Rose doesn't really like thinking about Canto Bight, about trusting DJ and being wrong, and everything else that went wrong too, but Finn talks about her freeing the fathiers, about everything she told him, and by the end, Poe and Rey are both smiling at her in a way she doesn't know quite what to do with.

“That's not really how it happened,” she feels the need to say when he trails off into silence.

“Just accept it, you're a hero,” says Finn, nudging her with his foot under the table. She looks at the other two, but they still don't seem likely to talk him out of it. “In good company, I guess.”

Rose smiles and stares at her plate because she thinks she's blushing and she doesn't know what to say in response to that. “I should probably get some sleep,” she finally says. Denying what Finn said seems rude and she really can't agree with him, so it's the next best thing. “More ships to fix tomorrow.”

To her surprise, Poe stands up. “I should rest too, the General and General Calrissian want me talking to some Bespin politicians tomorrow to sweet-talk them about why we're eating all their food and I need some sleep. Rey, Finn—see you tomorrow?”

“Sure, of course,” says Rey, but she's frowning a little at Rose. Not like she's upset, more like she's puzzled. When Finn opens his mouth, she kicks him under the table, and he looks so betrayed that Rose has to cover her mouth to hide a smile. “Rose, I have to talk to someone in the morning, but I'll be by in the afternoon again to help.”

“I'll have a good job waiting for you,” Rose assures her, and lets Poe lead her away.

Poe is silent for a little while, nodding at people in the halls like he always does. Rose is getting to know him not just as Paige's friend now, though, and she knows he probably wouldn't have offered to come along if he didn't want to say something away from the other two. “Are you okay?” he finally asks. “I can tell Finn to quit it with tales of your heroism.”

“I'm not,” she says, and winces. “A hero, I mean.”

“You saved Finn's life multiple times, from what I can tell, once pretty spectacularly. You are to him.” Poe nudges her shoulder. “And to me. I don't think any of the really good heroes ever agree that they are, so you're in good company.”

“You too. But I don't know if I want to be someone's hero. I just want to be friends with him. And you. And Rey.”

“The good news is that you are.” Poe is silent for a few steps. “I almost decked one of Calrissian's security officers for calling me a hero talking about D'Qar. I get it. Maybe none of us should be calling each other heroes.”

On impulse, Rose puts her arms around his neck and gives him a quick, firm hug. The two of them might not ever be able to talk much about the Battle of D'Qar, but she knows better than some what kind of regrets he might have. “So next time we have dinner,” she says, “maybe we can just all be friends.”

Poe squeezes her before she lets him go. “Friends it is.”

*

When Rey arrives at the ship hangar the next day, she's scowling and moving fast and sharp, and Rose decides against continuing her strategy of making the ex-troopers less scared of her and asks her to take a look at an extra hyperdrive that had been in storage on one of the ships to see if it could be put in one of the salvaged X-wings Lando found for them. They're older models, Rebellion models, and they could use the updated hyperdrive if it will work.

It's hard, looking at it all, not to think about DJ, about Canto Bight and weapons dealers and people happy to provide weapons to both sides of a war just for the money, but Rose knows they still need to fight, so she swallows down the bitterness.

It takes a little while for things to quiet down enough that she's free to go talk to Rey, but she puts down her tools to do it. If she's going to try to help, she's not going to pretend that it's about work. Instead, she goes over to Rey's workstation and stands there with her hands in her pockets until Rey looks up at her. “There's a lot more work to do to check on compatibility,” Rey says, sharp. “But I should be able to do it, I think.”

“Are you okay?” Rose asks. Rey looks up at her, scowling, and she tries hard to look non-threatening. “You don't have to tell me anything. But you seem like you aren't okay, and I can't be the only one worrying about it. Finn, BB-8, Poe, the General ...”

“I'm fine.” That's sharp, a decisive end to the conversation, and Rose is ready to backpedal and apologize and leave her alone when Rey's face softens all at once and she closes her eyes for a few seconds. “Sorry. It's just frustrating, knowing everyone has these expectations, hearing them call me a hero, when I couldn't do anything.”

“You did plenty,” Rose says, puzzled. “You were learning. No one is going to say it's bad that you were learning.”

Rey shakes her head, and her eyes are suddenly glistening. “I made Luke so angry, and he was so bitter. I couldn't make him help, I couldn't help Ben, I couldn't even get back in time to preserve more of the Resistance. Some hero I am.”

Apparently Rose isn't the only one who was bothered by that conversation last night. Maybe all four of them should lay off calling each other heroes. “It sounds to me,” she says carefully, “like none of that was your fault. Luke was bitter before you met him, and he helped in the end. And Ren ...” Rey flinches, and Rose forces herself to try again. “Ben. His choices aren't your fault either. You tried with both of them, and then you came and saved us.”

“If I could have made them listen ...”

“You did what you could. Just because you're a hero doesn't mean everything is on your shoulders, you know? I think that's a mistake it's way too easy to make. You're not just one person trying to save the galaxy. There are a lot of us. More every day. And some of that is because of you, and what you did.”

Rey is blinking at her, maybe a little overwhelmed, so Rose makes a point of having a look at the hyperdrive. They can definitely install it on one of the X-wings, but it may be smarter to take it apart and put it piece by piece in several of them, unless they can find more somewhere. Rose is supposed to have a meeting with the General and Lando in a few days to tell them what supplies she needs to get the Resistance flying again. She can bring it up then.

“I see why Finn talks about how amazing you are,” Rey finally says, and Rose almost chokes on her own tongue.

“Don't make me into a hero either,” she says when she can manage to speak again. “Unless it helps, I guess. Look, you don't have to be okay now, but you can talk to me if you want.”

Rey nods, slowly, but she looks a lot less angry than she did when she arrived, so Rose is going to take it as a win. “Thank you. And you can talk to me, if you'd like.”

Rose doesn't know what to say to that, so she leans in to inspect the hyperdrive a little better. “The couplings are going to be an issue,” she says.

Luckily, Rey seems to realize that Rose is out of words, so she turns her attention back to the task as well. “I've thought of a few workarounds, but some of them take a lot of power,” she says, and Rose settles in to the familiar talk with a sigh of relief.

*

Rose ends up in her meeting with the General and Lando alone, even though she tried to convince Rey, Poe, and Arell, the head of the ex-trooper mechanics, that she could use their support. Instead, she stands there with her dossier and tries not to let her hands shake while she tells them everything she needs to get the Resistance flying again.

“I appreciate you not wanting to spend too much money,” Lando says once she's explained her plan, “but don't you want some new ships? Retrofitting older ones will take time.”

“I know. But I don't want to give money to people who profit off this war if I can help it.”

They exchange a look, but the General is smiling. “I told you.” Lando makes a face at her, and Rose gets a flash of what they must have been like when they were part of the Rebel Alliance, when Luke and Han Solo were still alive and the Empire had just fallen. It isn't fair that they're having to face two wars like this in a lifetime. “Time has to be a factor too, because we need to be ready for them, but as long as you have good mechanics working on this, I don't mind trying it this way.”

“Thank you, General.”

“We should also discuss your promotion.”

Rose freezes, and Lando snorts. “General? I really don't need one, I promise.”

“You do. You're effectively in charge of the mechanical ground crew, and you should have the rank to get you the respect you deserve.”

“Think of it this way,” says Lando. “The Rebellion were foolish enough to make Han a general. Nobody should blink an eye about you.”

“And making you one was a completely sensible choice,” says the General, with a fond smile and a wry raise of her eyebrow. “I'm not saying you're going to be all the way up the scale, but you need to have a clearance, and more to the point, we need you to have a clearance. You're friends with three important people with no sense of discretion, so you need a rank that lets you hear everything.”

That, at least, makes sense. “Okay. I just … I don't want a rank because I went on a mission, or because I'm the only one there is.”

“It was a stupid mission, no one is getting promoted for that,” says the General, but she's just as fond and as wry with Rose as she is with Lando. “And you are what we've got, but you're smart and innovative, not to mention an idealist. We could use the good press of you being at the forefront of the Resistance.”

Rose has no idea what to do that, and judging from their twin smiles they know it. “Thank you, General,” she finally says. “I'll try not to let you down.”

The General stands up and shakes Rose's hand. “Believe me, Lieutenant Tico, that's the last thing I'm worried about.”

*

Rose finds herself spending a lot of time with Rey as the days pass and the Resistance fleet grows, patched-together and imperfect and somehow under her supervision. In the mornings, Rey is usually off doing whatever Jedi business she has, studying or meditating or trying to figure out how to repair a light saber or make a new one, but in the afternoon she comes to Rose and does whatever jobs Rose assigns her without complaining.

Finn shows up a few days in, an hour or two before Rose is going to call everyone off for the day. “Intelligence is done with me, at least for the day, and I still don't have any real duties,” he explains. “Anything for me to do? I know basic maintenance.”

Basic maintenance isn't what they need, but he probably knows First Order tech better than she does, so it's a toss-up. However, Rose knows he's probably there for Rey, and maybe even her, so she just smiles at him. “You can help Rey with her project, she could use someone to hand her tools and things.”

Finn looks relieved. “I can probably do that.”

“He can't,” Rey calls, her head inside a hyperdrive. “But I'll help him out.”

Finn laughs instead of looking offended, and Rose gets called by one of her workers to ask about repair priorities on an escape pod, so she leaves them to it and checks in a while later to find the two of them laughing, Finn slowing Rey down but making her smile. It's a good trade-off as far as Rose is concerned, and she sits with them and speeds the work back up until it's time to let everyone else off for the day.

“I'll be back tomorrow,” Finn says over dinner, when they've all walked over to the mess together. “If that's okay?”

“Of course it is,” says Rose, when Rey looks at her like it's Rose's decision. And maybe it is, since she's the one in charge of the mechanics. “Maybe tomorrow I'll have you testing some controls to see how responsive they are.”

Finn grins at that offer. “That I can do.”

*

Two days later, Poe shows up. Since Rey and Finn are happily arguing over whether they should be concentrating more on speed or safety for one of the refurbished X-wings, Rose goes over to greet him before they notice that he's there. “Let me guess. You got kicked out of another meeting and decided to come help?”

BB-8 is the one to answer over Poe's sheepish smile. _Designation-Poe is bored. This function is preferable to previous function._

“What was his previous function?” Rose asks, trying to stifle her smile while Poe groans.

“Thanks, buddy, I can take it from here.” Poe looks from BB-8 to her with pleading eyes, and she already knows she's going to give in before he continues. “Calrissian has me talking to people, trying to get recruitment numbers up, and it's really embarrassing. So I said that you're probably at a point in repairs where you're going to need a pilot to start testing things. Please tell me you are.”

Rose doesn't know when she started running a refuge for the Resistance's most visible figures when they don't want to do what they're supposed to be doing, but she thinks she likes that they all trust her so much. As long as General Organa doesn't start showing up, she's glad to take them in. “Sure. Finn's been running safety checklists and trying out control panels, but there are a few ships that could probably use your expertise.”

Poe, to her shock, grabs her and kisses her loudly on the cheek. “You are my very favorite mechanic. Point me at a ship, I've missed flying.”

“Hovering,” Rose corrects. “That's the first step. I need to be sure they won't blow up in the hangar before you take them out, much less out of atmo or engaging the hyperdrive.”

He wilts a little, but he's still smiling. “Fine, I can hover. I'll hover with the best of them.”

BB-8 notices Rey and rolls over to her right away, full of some kind of story about what he's been up to, and Rey laughs and bends to say hello before looking up. “Poe, are you here to join us?”

“Apparently I'm going to start hovering in a few of the ships,” he calls back, towing Rose along in his wake as he goes over to them. She catches the edge of a grin from one of her other workers as she goes. “If I'd known you two were hiding out with Lieutenant Tico, though, I would have come along sooner.”

“You were doing other things,” Rose protests. She's already learning not to object when her friends use her new title, because it only makes them do it more. “All of you were. I'm probably going to get yelled at for misappropriating resources.”

“You can say things like that with a straight face, which already makes you a much better officer than I am,” Poe says, arm around her shoulders. “Come on, show me what I can do. Are you going to let me at one of the First Order fighters?”

“Last time he tried, he crashed us on Jakku,” Finn points out, and Rose loses five minutes to laughing while Poe, Finn, BB-8, and Rey argue about Poe's flying skills, the relative merit of Jakku, and how exactly everything went in those confusing few days.

Eventually, Poe gets in a cockpit and gets a lesson in First Order controls from Arell before he starts maneuvers, talking to her over the radio while she tells him what to try, and BB-8 too, since First Order fighters aren't built to rely on astromechs.

“How's it feeling?” she asks when he's been turning in place and raising and lowering the ship on her command.

“I want to say it's great and I can take it for a swing around the city, but the vertical controls aren't very responsive, I think something's off in the wiring, so that will have to wait a day or two.”

“Bring it in, then, you can help us figure out what's wrong.”

Rose feels bad grounding him, but Poe already looks more settled when he gets out of the cockpit, even if he couldn't fly for real. “I'm thinking it's the stabilizers,” he says when she goes to meet him. “BB-8 was saying something felt off with them, not as responsive as he's used to, and that would throw off vertical control.”

Rey chimes in a suggestion, and Finn says something about common First Order design features, and the four of them spend the rest of their afternoon with their heads in the engine of the ship, rewiring things and working around the source of the trouble, figuring out how to apply it to the rest of the ships.

“I'll be back tomorrow to fly it,” Poe promises as he's leaving, groaning over a dinner Lando asked him to attend. “This time I'll get to go out.”

“Definitely,” Rose says, even though it's a stupid promise, and it's worth it for his grin.

*

Poe does take the ship out for a spin around Cloud City the next day, and another one the day after that, and then another, until more than half their small fleet is up in the air. Lando and Chewbacca take the _Falcon_ up and chase him around one day, and Rose listens to Poe whooping in happiness as they maneuver around and the modified fighter lets him keep up every step of the way.

Rose is busy with the fleet, but not so busy that she doesn't notice the Resistance starting to pick up momentum again. People show up in ones and twos, frightened but determined. Some of them come with stories about the new Supreme Leader of the First Order, and Rose knows how much that must hurt the General, but they're all there to help. Rose gets five new mechanics in a week, and Lando finds them more old ships to refurbish, including a few old smuggler ships that should be able to maneuver just as fast as a fighter, if the _Falcon_ is any example.

Finn, Rey, and Poe are all busier, but all of them stop by the hangar at least once a day, to sit with Rose or to help her or, in Poe and a few times Rey's cases, to get a ship up in the air.

“It's the most restful place in the city,” Rey explains when Rose asks, bemused, why she's bothering to stop by if she only has a few minutes to spend. “It's busy, but it's got purpose, and everyone here trusts you. The Force is … it's quiet, here.”

“Well, you're always welcome. All three of you are. Even Finn, even if he doesn't know how to tell wrenches apart.”

To her surprise, Rey hugs her, quick and firm. “Thank you. I know we slow you down sometimes.”

“You're all my friends. I wouldn't do anything else. And besides, you don't. Just the other two.”

Rey laughs. “Just for that, I'm telling them you said that.”

She does, when the four of them meet up for dinner in the increasingly-crowded mess hall. Finn and Poe pretend to be offended, but they're smiling the whole time, and Rose is so lucky she knows all of them, that somehow they're all friends.

*

Finn is with Rose one afternoon, working on rewiring a board in one of the old ships, which he's getting better at day by day, when Rey and Poe show up, both of them downcast.

“You've got a mission,” Finn says, looking between them. “Together?”

“I know where we're going, Rey knows what we need.” Poe spreads his hands. “I don't like leaving when we don't have many defenses, but this is an important mission. Can I take one of the refurbished ships? They're a little less showy than some of the others.”

“One of the freight ships is ready, it didn't need much work,” Rose offers. “I'll have to double-check with Command, but since you're in command of the flying forces these days, I don't think there should be much trouble.”

“Can you tell us what you're doing?” Finn asks, frowning.

“Leia didn't tell me not to tell you,” says Rey. “I need a kyber crystal. I think I've finally learned enough about the saber to build one that suits me, but I need a new crystal, and Poe knows the way to a planet that might still have a few, even if no one lives there anymore.”

“We'll be back soon. You won't know we're even gone,” says Poe.

“Of course we will.” Rose puts her hands on her hips. “But you'll be back soon, so at least we won't have much time to miss you. When are you leaving?”

Poe grimaces. “As soon as we can get the ship in the air, unfortunately. As soon as Rey said she was ready to forge a saber, the General wanted us going top speed.”

Rose knows that they can't put things off, that every day they don't spend making active plans is a day the First Order has to gain more power, get closer to them. Even so, she doesn't want Rey and Poe to go anywhere. Judging by Finn's crestfallen face, he agrees. “Then we'll start some last checks on the ship,” she says, because what she wants doesn't matter right now. “Rey, you're with me for that. Finn, you can help Poe out with getting whatever supplies they need.”

All three of them immediately move to do what she suggests, and Rose takes Rey over to the ship. It's not as fast as the _Falcon_ , doesn't have a history like it does, but it will do the job and it shouldn't get too much attention on them. “It should do,” Rey says once they're inside. “Big enough that we won't want to kill each other.”

“Is that a problem with you two?”

“No, but if we're stuck in a two-person X-wing for three days running it will be.” Rey frowns down at the co-pilot's controls, checking on responsiveness even though it should be fine. “I know I need to do this, but I hate leaving. I feel like as soon as I do something will go wrong, and you and Finn will be left here while Poe and I try to find a way to help.”

“Finn and I will be fine. I'd say we're more worried about you two. And the only way to solve any of it is for this to be a really fast mission.”

“You'll get word to us somehow if something goes wrong, right?”

“Of course we will,” says Rose, though she has no idea how.

It seems to reassure Rey, though, and they spend the rest of the time it takes to finish checks on the ship in companionable silence. Poe and Finn arrive just after they finish, each with a bag, BB-8 at their heels. “Ready for wheels up?” Poe asks. “Bespin control knows to be expecting the craft for liftoff, so we should be clear if the ship is.”

“It will get us there,” Rey says. “We should go.”

Rose starts to back up, getting ready to go to Finn, since he seems even more downcast than before, and to her surprise, she's stopped by Rey's arms around her, a hug so strong she can barely move enough to hug Rey back. “Come back safe. That's an order, and you'd better listen to me, because you don't have an official military rank and I do.”

Rey laughs into her shoulder. “Okay, okay.” She pulls away and pushes Rose's hair out of her face, and then goes over to Finn to give him what looks like the same treatment.

Rose is left looking at Poe, who's watching Rey and Finn with a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. She goes over to him and knocks her shoulder against his, glad when his face immediately brightens. “Are you going to order me around too?”

“No, you outrank me, that won't work on you. Are you okay on this mission, though?”

“It's a planet they tested the Death Star on, and I'm not looking forward to seeing the aftermath of that. But kyber crystals are supposed to be able to survive anything, so off we go to try. It's the planet the First Order is least likely to have its eyes on, so it's the one we want to try first.”

“You're going to be safe, right?”

“As safe as you guys are,” he says, which isn't comforting and probably isn't supposed to be.

Rose doesn't have a response that will let her voice stay steady, so she gets up on her tiptoes and kisses him on the cheek instead, just like he did for her. “We'll see you in a few days.”

Poe opens his mouth, eyes wide, but Finn and Rey are letting go, and BB-8 is rocking back and forth on the floor, impatient. She doesn't know what he wants to do, but she suspects it's not what he does do, which is grab her hands in his, squeeze, and let go, stepping back as he does. “We will. Rey, you ready?”

She nods, eyes glistening with tears, and just like that they're all saying goodbyes, Rose and Finn leaving the ship and getting on the radio to run them through their flight checks to get out of the hangar.

“I'm going to miss them,” she says when they've flown away, checking out with the tower operators as they go. Rose's mechanics are still working, and she should be too, but all she wants to do is lean against Finn and pretend she can still see the ship flying away in the distance.

“I'll just have to come visit all the time.” When she looks back at Finn, he's frowning, looking at the closing hangar doors like she just was. “Not like I have anything else to do.”

“You're in charge of the defectors,” Rose points out. “That's something to do.”

“I barely know more than they do. You have a whole fleet to maintain, and they're going off on adventures, and I'm ...”

“Still a hero and still my friend.” Rose makes it as firm as she can and gives him a hug, hoping it helps make the message sink in and wanting the reassurance either way. “We're all going to find ways to be useful. This time it's theirs. I mostly just want them to come back safe.”

“They're going to.”

*

Finn is more of a fixture in the fleet hangar than usual over the next few days, and when the General insists she takes an afternoon off because she's been working too hard, he follows her to the _Falcon_ too, where Lando and Chewbacca have clearly still been working, and the two of them sit there in silence for a while, fiddling with a door sensor because it's all Rose trusts herself with when she's so restless.

“You like Rey and Poe, right?” he asks after a while.

Rose looks over her shoulder at him, startled, and finds him with his brows knit, staring at the floor, leg jittering a little with anxiety. “Of course I do. They're some of my favorite people, these days. I love all three of you.”

Finn snaps his head up to meet her eyes, and Rose realizes what she said, but she doesn't know how to walk it back, and doesn't really want to. They're all in a war. A little honesty isn't the worst thing that could happen. “That's good.” He nods a few times. “That's really good. I—all three of you? That's a thing that happens here?”

“I don't know. Maybe. If all four of us want it to.”

Probably Rose could kiss him again, and this time she wouldn't almost be dying and he wouldn't have almost died and it would be _better_. But it would also be them starting without Rey and Poe, and that feels wrong. If they want it to be all four of them, then they should start that way if they possibly can. Instead, she goes to join him where he's sitting on the floor, forgetting about working for the moment, and leans her head against his shoulder.

“We'll ask them when they get back, right?” he finally asks. “I don't want them to leave again without trying.”

“We'll ask when they get back,” Rose promises, and it's terrifying, but she also knows she couldn't do anything else.

*

Rose is working when they get back, talking one of her workers through some safety updates in the newest ship Lando found for them, an Empire-era TIE with enough gun power to make Rose raise her eyebrows and enough safety issues to make her wince.

Finn is in the part of her hangar that's become her office, scattered with her tools and plans and everything else she needs to fix the fleet. He's working on looking through information about stormtrooper installations that might be persuaded to join the Resistance if they can be caught at the right time in the right way, but he's the one sitting next to the radio. “Hangar doors open, there's a ship coming home,” he shouts, and Rose turns around to get her excitement confirmed by his grin.

Horizon, her current assistant, is grinning too when she turns back to apologize to him. “I think I can take it from here. You welcome them home, take a break. You work too hard, Lieutenant.”

“I need to promote a few of you so I can deputize you,” she agrees, and takes off at a jog for the landing spot for the ship, which is just starting to come through the hangar door, opened by whoever is operating radio control today.

Finn is ahead of her in seconds, taking advantage of his longer legs, so he gets to the bottom of the ramp just as it finishes unrolling, letting out BB-8, who has a lot to say about the relative bumpiness of hyperspace in a ship that isn't astromech-stabilized, which keeps Finn's attention and then Rose's while they wait for Poe and Rey to shut down the ship and come out to say hello.

Poe is first off, arms already open for a hug, and Finn obliges him after a quick look at Rose, leaving her to wait for Rey to follow. Rey comes at a jog, which probably means Poe agreed to co-pilot the last leg of the journey so she had the responsibility of shutting down all the systems.

“Quiet trip?” Rose asks.

Rey doesn't answer, just puts her arms around Rose and, a second later, her lips against hers. Rose thinks she gasps, which makes Rey pull back for a second, before Rose pulls her back in just for a second. BB-8 says something emphatic Rose's overwhelmed brain can't quite decode, but Rey pulls away and laughs, looking down at him. “You're right, I did say that,” she says, and then she's turning from Rose to Finn, kissing him too while he grins against her lips.

“That wasn't what I meant,” Poe says, wry, but that just gets him kissed in his turn, and when Rey lets him go, he keeps an easy hand around her waist. “I meant we should wait to be home before we talked about it.”

“You just said we should wait,” says Rey, and she's happier than Rose thinks she's ever seen her. Maybe the trip was good for her, or maybe the return is. Rose really hopes it's the return.

She finds herself laughing, because Poe is trying to look stern but mostly his smile is fighting free of his attempts, and BB-8 is smug circling around their feet, and Rey and Finn are both wildly grinning like they've won a battle before they even started fighting it. All three of them look at her, a little curious, and she shakes her head, because she couldn't explain if she wanted to. “Maybe we should get out of sight before the mechanics stop pretending they can't see us,” she says instead, because it's just as true as telling them how happy and bewildered she is that it could all work out as easily as this. “Because we definitely should talk.”

“That's a great idea,” says Finn, grabbing her hand on one side and Rey's on the other, so they all walk in an ungainly mass right back up the ship's ramp.

 _Designation-friends are going to get in trouble with designation-General-Organa_ , BB-8 calls behind them, and there's a quickly-hushed cheer from one of her mechanics as they all disappear into the ship to talk a little more.

*

Life intrudes. They get a wonderful half-hour, more than they probably should take, of all of them stumbling through words and finding kisses much easier, before the radio crackles to life in the cockpit and Connix tells them, amused, that General Organa knows they're back and they should probably hop to reporting.

Poe is the first to stand, but Rey isn't far behind him, already reaching into her pocket. They haven't talked about the mission, but that's enough to tell Rose that Rey found a crystal, that she's going to have a saber of her own. “We'll see you tonight?” Rey asks, suddenly frowning like she's not sure this is going to last more than a few seconds.

“Of course,” says Rose. “As soon as I'm off shift. You'll have to tell us everything you can about your mission.”

“I should probably go too,” says Finn, with an apologetic grimace at Rose. “More meetings about a trooper base with some potential defectors.”

Now all three of them are looking sorry, and Rose shakes her head and starts prodding them all out of the ship and into the hangar and reality. “We're going to be busy until we win, and everything you're doing is making it more likely that we'll win and do it faster.”

That at least makes them all look a little less glum, and Rose walks them all to the door of the hangar, where Finn kisses her quickly on the cheek and the other two seem happy to follow suit on their way out. Finn lingers an extra few seconds. “Fighting for those we love, right?” he says, smiling a little, and ducks out before she can think of what to say.

After a few seconds, she turns around and finds her entire work force looking at her, not even pretending to work, most of them grinning. She grins right back at them. “Come on, get to work, everyone. It seems like I've got a dinner date.”

*

When Rose gets to the mess that evening, there are a lot of whispers, and it seems like everyone in the Resistance has decided to get a meal at the same time. She would be embarrassed, but mostly it's amazing to see how many people there are in the mess. The number has tripled since she woke up on the _Falcon_ , and it's growing every day.

And, best of all, Finn and Rey and Poe are sitting at a table in one corner, and there's a spot free for her. Rose feels like she's being watched every second she spends getting her meal, and she gets knowing looks from a few people she's going to have to be embarrassed about later, including the General and Lando, eating for once with everyone instead of somewhere else to wheedle donations out of the rich in Cloud City. Still, she doesn't mind too much. The Resistance needs good news, and she thinks this is definitely that, four people finding each other in the middle of a war.

“Did the debrief go well?” she asks when she finally makes it to the table and they've all exchanged smiles and mumbled greetings, suddenly shy again.

“We only got a little bit yelled at,” says Poe. “That's a win, as far as I'm concerned.”

“And tomorrow morning, I have a light saber to start forging.” Rey reaches into a pocket again, holding on, but Rose doesn't ask to see, not with everyone watching them. “I've never done it before, but I think I can figure it out. And if not, I do know a mechanic.”

Rose hasn't made a light saber either, but they all know that, and if Rey wants her help, she's going to give it. “I'll try to fit it in between getting a fleet fit to fly for Poe. I'm betting missions are going to start up again soon.” She nods at Finn. “Like yours. I'm going to have to fix up a lot of ships to make sure you all keep coming home.”

Home isn't Cloud City, and all of them know it. It's not secure enough for a base. Home probably won't be the next place either, or anywhere else they go when they're on the run. But home was waking up on the _Falcon_ knowing she was safe, and now it's going to be snatched half-hours with Poe, Finn, and Rey, and whatever hangar is holding the ships that she's pretending her mechanics don't call Tico's Fleet.

Smiles echo around the table, and Rose thinks maybe they're all thinking along the same lines, but none of them says anything. Poe bumps his knee against hers, and Rey clutches the kyber crystal in her pocket, and Finn beams at her across the table, and all of them start eating, with the sounds of the Resistance all around them, the best home Rose knows.

**Author's Note:**

>  **lady_ragnell** : My thanks, as always, to **knight_tracer** , for being a wonderful collaborator and always giving me the excuse to write some Star Wars. I really liked getting to write some happier endings for all the characters throughout the trilogies. My thanks also to the Pod Together mods for being completely on board with us doing a series of fics and posting them on different days!


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